


Closets

by Aeshna etonensis (GMWWemyss)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 12:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1817872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GMWWemyss/pseuds/Aeshna%20etonensis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has secrets, in the business. Such as why and how Liam has gone so swiftly from cuddly puppy to, well, as you (wait for it) were. Or the secret of Zayn’s (smokeless) fire. Or just why Harry is so fascinating and, er, charming. Or Louis’ puckishness. Or why Niall is really becoming the least bit tired of leprechaun jokes. And how Simon … foresaw … their success.</p><p>And then there’s the other secret everyone knows: never trust the Fair Folk. Whether they’re called Faeries, or the Sidhe, or Peris (ahem).... That lot? They’re enough to make even dependable old Liam snap and snarl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Casting

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this shall be sporadic in its updates but shall of course (eventually) be finished. It’s a way – like _Bretwalda,_ which shall also be finished _eventually_ – of my discharging a superabundance of energy when I can no longer bear another moment’s work on the 1914 book or the second novel in the Village Tales series – which I shan’t of course advertise here; I advert you rather to the Tumblrs linked at my profile if you are at all curious –, yet am impelled to write all the same. 
> 
> It is apparently _de rigeur_ and a rite of passage to write an AU of this sort; so, Why not? I need hardly, I imagine, labour the point that this is wildly unlike any imaginable reality and has nothing to do with any actual person (broadly defined), living, dead, or … otherwise. It is a mere riff upon certain media constructs and public personæ, and nothing whatever to do with the people who have chosen to hide behind and market themselves, or _be_ hidden and marketed, through those.

* * *

Average People – and Liam considered himself bloody average, ta ever so – didn’t suffer from … what was that gob-cracking phrase Zayn used? ‘Nominative determinism’? (Liam felt a warm glow at getting that in one: bostin. It always made him all but wag his tail when he did something that proved, even if only to his own satisfaction, that He Wasn’t, Actually, _Thick._ )

But even he admitted he wasn’t, in some ways, all _that_ average. And not because of the things other folk’d point to, admirers and detractors both, from his money and the place in the world-conquering group that had made him that money, to his vocal ability, to his (he squirmed a trifle at so much as thinking it; wasn’t very humble, was it?) body, to – which was becoming more of an open secret than he was altogether certain he liked – his sexuality _and its expression_ and just who he was in love with. (Talk of nominative determinism … beautiful prince, _aye._ )

Average People didn’t suffer from nominative determinism; but whether he liked it or not, he _weren’t_ average. Not in that way, anyroadup. Other people could have a name that were a form of ‘William’ and it not mean what the name meant, ‘the willing helm’, the voluntary protector. Every Payne in England were named for the _paganus,_ the field, the land itself, but – well, it were different for him and his, like. Plenty of folk there were, come from Wolvo, without that’s, well, _meaning_ anything; but he weren’t … average.

If he weren’t who and what he were, if he were _average,_ it’d fair make him want to snarl and howl.

* * *

The amount of rubbish people could be led to believe.... Simon never knew whether to laugh all the way to the bank or – well, no, damned if he’d cry over it. _Idiots._ This latest wheeze – surprised to find his father’s people were Jewish, he hadn’t known, how exciting – proved that. Oh, it was at once tedious and amusing to come up with a new origin myth every half-century or century, and, well, after a time the tedium weighs the heavier, and one handicaps oneself in this game of chess against oneself to make it _interesting;_ all the same.... And then people turned ’round and went on about what a ‘wizard’ one was, as an impresario. It’d make a cat laugh – in fact, he could name, had he chosen, a number of cats, and other familiars, who did find it simply hilarious. Average People, of course, wouldn’t understand that; they couldn’t grasp the essential fact that he remained, in every appearance, Simon, He Who _Listened,_ and the cowled man, born with the caul of foresight. (It wasn’t always perfect, of course – he wasn’t, thought he, guiltily, and reproved himself for thinking it, quite certain that the ‘it turns out me old da’s gran was Jewish’ wheeze hadn’t contributed to the unease and distance, the two minds the man was in regarding his son’s career, with Zayn’s dad – it wasn’t _perfect_ foresight, but it was as near as damn it. And after all … this latest wheeze had smoothed his way to his latest Nimue.....) He grinned: there were advantages to continual reinvention and reappearance. (And people had the brass-necked effrontery to babble of sodding _Botox...._ ) His mind wandered, happily.

‘Mr Cowell?’

‘Hm?’ He remained distracted.

‘Your new signing? One Direction? Did you wish Modest to manage them? Theirs was the best bid....’

Simon wasn’t, really, attending. It’d be fine, whoever managed them … hardly mattered, really, these lads could see themselves right – in fact, a bit of stick from management might force them to become truly themselves … it didn’t matter a damn … _ah, Nimue, my dear, you may call yourself what you like now and hide yourself in a marriage to some average bloke in a newer world, but I’ve found you once more, my darling obsession, and nor oceans nor continents shall come between us...._

‘Whoever you like,’ said he, sending the PA scurrying and leaving him to his dreams and visions.

* * *

‘ _Smokeless_ fire,’ grumbled He Who Waxes Wealthy. ‘What part of _smokeless_ fire does he not grasp, this son of ours?’

‘Now, love,’ said his wife, with a roll of her expressive eyes.

‘He gets all this from _your_ side of the family.’ The tone was only _mock-_ severe. He Who Waxes Wealthy, He Who Enjoys Ease, knew well that at the end of the day The Noble Daughter ran the household – and him, its titular head. Long-daughter of Baldur, her long-mothers Belisama and Epona, daughter also of the Sidhe, and of the blood of the Succubi … he, a mere – _‘mere’:_ if you liked, _there_ was irony for you – ifrit, descended though he was of those jinni who had accompanied the Companions who’d brought the Message and the Faith, and their blood, from the Land of the Messenger of God eastwards unto South West Asia; son in several generations of the Prince of Saiful Muluk and the fairy woman, Badi-ul-Jamal, though he might be: he knew who it was and what manner of being he had taken to wife, and who, when all was said and done, was in charge here. The woman was all Britain in herself, Celt and Pict, Saxon and Viking, English and Irish.... In short, thought he, _very_ quietly to himself, undimming beauty concealing an amalgam of Boudicca and Margaret Bloody Thatcher. No wonder he trembled at her frowns.

* * *

‘There’s no smoke without there’s fire, love.’ Karen looked worried – but then, she almost always did. It was a wearing and a wearying life, theirs, and he knew it.

Geoff was massively reassuring. ‘He’ll do, love. He were born to it, Our Kid.’ And that was true enough, they both knew: Arthur the dux bellorum and Guy of Warwick, his ancestors in one line, simply weren’t in it; nor even the blood he had of further afield, wulvers and his conriocht lineage: Their Kid was of Wolvo, and was The Land, and was who and what he was, shepherd in a way and protector, one not made to rend – save as he protected – but to protect, like the ‘nanny dog’, the Staffie. And he was coming of age, now, Their Liam, no longer cub-like, no longer puppyish.

* * *

It was enough to send one – she giggled, softly – round the, ah, _twist._ What – _what,_ if anything – had Simon Cowell been _thinking?_ Or _had_ he? Silly little man. Always had been, really: Auntie Ygraine had had a deal to say of _that._ Oh, Harri Bach’d be all right – it didn’t matter that his father had been, well, _average_ for a man with incubus blood in him, of a patrilineage that had removed from dull, flat East Anglia to the Vale: Harry (and there was reason enough for his bearing the Welsh form of the name, there on the Marches where all blood was mixed) was _her_ son as well, a Green Man – his eyes attested it – and born, Seeing, in the chime hours; and when they’d moved to Cheshire, far from Evesham’s Lethean lulling (the chimes at midnight: shallow, my Lord Justice, shallow) and the clattering silence of Redditch’s environs (man, all man, overwriting deep history with a mere noise that silenced all things else), he’d begun to come into himself. And why not? They were none so far there from the Edge, where his wizard great-grandsire slept beside kings and warriors within the hidden iron gates of Alderley. (She’d have quite liked to have had the boy grow up in Mobberley, in fact, but house prices were so dear, and banks and building societies could hardly be made to understand – without, as it were, persuasion, which she eschewed – means of _in_ visible support, when it came to dosh....)

But what, really, had the man been thinking? Oh, the dear boys were doing well, certainly, but this immodest and imprudent and indeed impudent management of theirs! She was more than half tempted to sort the buggers herself; but that’d hardly be fair to Harry, whose quest perhaps this was, laid though she could not See it. She wasn’t worried for _Harry;_ but the others.... They weren’t, by the standards of average people, at all average; but … they were, unlike Harry, Average People. He’d want to save them – all of them, not only Louis, which, she knew, must surely be all that _Harry_ was thinking of....

* * *

Jay was worried. Normally, she’d have brought her worries to Anne – it wasn’t altogether a joke, and what else were in-laws for, she’d like to know? But she could hardly do _that_. Anne was a very superior person for, well, an Average Person, but.... You just couldn’t, could you. It was one thing to laugh along when folk spoke of Louis as puckish and a pixie, and to agree – with much supporting detail – that he’d been a trial and a pest from the cradle onwards. But to go in cold blood – cold _iron,_ it might as well be – and say openly, to an Average Person, that he … well. You couldn’t warn people he was a Reynardine, that he carried the lines of Loki and of Wade – _bloody_ Viking invasions – that his old gran’s people on the Continent were lutins....

He’d want to step up, she thought, would Louis, and leave off the pixie tricksiness, and _lead;_ and not for darling Harry’s sake only. They were dears, the lads, all of them, but they were all, bar Louis, hampered by being Average People.

* * *

Time passed, as it must and always does here in the fields we know. Modest … well: they grew increasingly cold, and callous, and uncaring. There was something, everyone at Modest (down to the very tea-boys) felt, uncanny about those five idiots. Something which made normal, average people uneasy, and a little frightened, and itching to lash out and do them ill. Tomlinson, obviously, that was the worst of the lot, and Styles not far behind, they felt; but even Payne and Malik by this point were enough to set teeth on edge; even Horan, nowadays, obscurely annoyed them.

They were so damned _difficult._ Uncanny. Odd. Not at all like Little Mix.... Charming, those girls; that was the word. Simply _charming._ Oh, Jesy, Jade, and – wotsit – oh, right, Leigh-Anne were, in themselves, fairly, well, _average;_ but when you mixed Perrie in, even a little.... She was _charming._ Those huge, innocent (vacant, vapid) eyes.... Not quite _bewitching;_ more like – oh, a sprite, perhaps.... _Charming,_ that was it. Simply _enthralling._

Not at all like those damned _boys._

* * *

T’at man Simon had lost t’e plot, whatever, thought Niall. And wasn’t he himself t’at said it, himself t’e Champion, of a name wort’ nine hostages, and a man of war by surname, but? And t’e lads....

What for did t’ey not _know?_ Sure and it wasn’t aisy t’ tell your mate – let alone your _mate,_ and weren’t Liam and Zayn as destined as Harry and Louis were already mated? – y’ weren’t an Average Person, and t’em t’inking all long y’ was; but it wanted doin’. Circlin’ around each ot’er … Jaysus. Here’s Zayn blushin’ and duckin’ his head all t’is time when Liam speaks t’ him, and Liam babblin’ and stammerin’ when he tries just t’at, and Zayn bein’ coy o’ watter an’ Liam beggin’ t’ teach him to swim (an’ if t’ere’s any swimmin’ to be larnt, what for would it not be Niall teachin’, and him part selkie? It was chronic, it was). And as for Harry an’ Louis....

O’ _course_ Zayn was shy o’ watter – his mam might be … what she was, and Belisama’d been a naiad, she had, but his da, for all t’at an an- _ces_ tor was t’e prince o’ t’e lake, well, watter doused fire, sure, and fair play to Zayn bein’ shy; but it was daft, t’ imagine at all, at all, t’at _Liam_ would not protect anyone he cared for, and Zayn most of all.

Chrisht. Four o’ t’em, t’e eejits, an’ each of t’em certain all t’e rest was _Average._ It was time, it was, and past time, t’ey all came out t’ one anot’er. Even himself, not t’at he was at all ashamed t’ be a good part gancanagh, an’ if it meant t’ey’d leave aff jokin’ t’at it was a clurichaun he was, why, t’en, he’d somet’ing of it come what might whatever.

Aye, and past time it was done. He didn’t trust t’e Fair Folk – he knew t’em too well, and too many o’ t’em – and t’at wan as had management twisted ’round her finger.... _Peri_ she was, sure, an’ it wasn’t i-ron nor watter runnin’ nor salt’d keep her aff much longer....

 

* * *

Zayn was sleepless in his bunk. It was a thirst and a consuming fire.... How Liam managed to go from puppy to alpha wolf in the blink of an eye he’d never understand, but, oh, did it make him ache. And _ache._ It took all his control not to simply – but he _couldn’t_ . It wasn’t fair to do that to Average People, they couldn’t resist (he reminded himself, running through lessons long dinned into him), it was hardly better than rape. It wasn’t fair … and this wasn’t _fair._ He _burned._

 

* * *

Niall, psychically bombarded with the incessant worries and doubts and lusts and miseries of four others (even as regarded Harry and Louis, whose union was not guiltless, each lashing himself with the thought that If The Other _Knew_ ), clenched his teeth. Tomorrow was a rare, blessed off-day, _in_ a hotel, and by God he was sitting them all down with some nosh – all right, a hell of a deal of it, _and_ the gargle – and having this _out_ at last.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, in Leader of the Pack:
> 
> Seeing, reflected Harry, was all very well, but it took a good deal of fun out of life. He imagined Simon hadn’t foreseen just what he’d ended up with, with them, and must be laughing with delight (well, when he wasn’t throwing a tanty or having an eppy over their – usually Lou-led – latest scrapes). All the same, he wished he’d paid attention, or that others had Seen, when it came to that oil and water mixture that was Lou, determined to lead (not infrequently into a fen: Lou could be awfully like a will of the wisp, for an Average Person), and Liam, usually equable and willing to let others take the lead – indeed, begging that they be allowed to, back in the days when Liam was always taking the first verse and was being primed for the spotlight that Harry had since, to Liam’s relief and Harry’s despair, been saddled with – mm … saddling … the others had their own reasons and they’d bloody well best not be his, for fawning on his Boo-bear, but he at least couldn’t help it and didn’t wish to do, you don’t see something like Lou (and Lou’s arse) presented to you like a fine horse saddled to ride and not ride it for all your worth....
> 
> (Harry was even now capable of blushing, though not often; had he known that Niall could hear his every thought, he’d have been glowing with embarrassment, not least because Niall’s only comment to himself was a despairing note that even in his interior fecking monologues, Hazza couldn’t keep t’ t’e point whatever....)
> 
> But – to get back to his point – oil and water: Liam was biddable only up to a point – usually the point at which his darling Zayn (and, Christ, those two wanted to wake up and realise they were each of them equally arse over tit for the other, and give over pining and shag) might be cost a second’s sleep or in any way disturbed or distracted or, Harry hardly knew, have to breathe an extra breath – and then, well, Payno went from cuddly puppy to ravening beast.
> 
> And Harry had noticed that whenever Liam bared his teeth at last, Lou always put his nose in the air and turned away in what most people might have thought a sneer and a provocation … but which was in fact a baring of the throat, a social defeat display that always calmed Liam and defused his agonistic display and made him – cunning old Lou – apologise and try to make it up to Lou. Which commonly led to Lou’s getting his way after all. And leading them straight into a bog (and not the sort of bog he and Lou had met in, either).
> 
> It fretted Harry slightly that sound, dependable Nialler was now calling band meetings. Two rival leaders was bad enough; three’d be unbearable.


	2. Leader of the pack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry realises that these revelations explain a good deal. Rather unnervingly so.

* * *

Seeing, reflected Harry, was all very well, but it took a good deal of fun out of life. He imagined Simon hadn’t foreseen just what he’d ended up with, with them, and must be laughing with delight (well, when he wasn’t throwing a tanty or having an eppy over their – usually Lou-led – latest scrapes). All the same, he wished he’d paid attention, or that others had Seen, when it came to that oil and water mixture that was Lou, determined to lead (not infrequently into a fen: Lou could be awfully like a will of the wisp, for an Average Person), and Liam, usually equable and willing to let others take the lead – indeed, begging that they be allowed to, back in the days when Liam was always taking the first verse and was being primed for the spotlight that Harry had since, to Liam’s relief and Harry’s despair, been saddled with – mm … saddling … the others had their own reasons and they’d bloody well _best_ not be his, for fawning on his Boo-bear, but he at least couldn’t help it and didn’t wish to do, you don’t see something like Lou (and Lou’s arse) presented to you like a fine horse saddled to ride and not _ride_ it for all your worth....

(Harry was even now capable of blushing, though not often; had he known that Niall could hear his every thought, he’d have been glowing with embarrassment, not least because Niall’s only comment to himself was a despairing note that even in his interior _fecking_ monologues, Hazza couldn’t keep t’ t’e _point_ whatever....)

But – to get back to his point – oil and water: Liam was biddable only up to a point – usually the point at which his darling Zayn (and, Christ, those two wanted to wake up and realise they were each of them equally arse over tit for the other, and give over pining and _shag_ ) might be cost a second’s sleep or in any way disturbed or distracted or, Harry hardly knew, have to _breathe_ an extra breath – and then, well, Payno went from cuddly puppy to ravening beast.

And Harry had noticed that whenever Liam bared his teeth at last, Lou always put his nose in the air and turned away in what most people might have thought a sneer and a provocation … but which was in fact a baring of the throat, a social defeat display that always calmed Liam and defused his agonistic display and made him – cunning old Lou – apologise and try to make it up to Lou. Which commonly led to Lou’s getting his way after all. And leading them straight into a bog (and not the sort of bog he and Lou had met in, either).

It fretted Harry slightly that sound, dependable _Nialler_ was now calling band meetings. Two rival leaders was bad enough; three’d be unbearable.

* * *

Niall had ordered in a feast – the hotel be damned: he’d exhausted their kitchens _and_ sent Paul’s lads out for takeaway, and drink with it, and the food was after their kinds as he could contrive. There was mead and roast pig, fit for the Companions, the fennids of the Fianna, and for Valhalla alike, and nuts and fruit and veg. for the Green Man; and mutton and all sorts, curries and qeema and murgh cholay and lassi, honey and ices, and rare-bloody meat and the Roast Beef of Old England....

Even without knowing his mind or that he was mindful of theirs, the others looked uneasily one at the other, and they thinking each alone was himself the only one wasn’t an Average Person. Well, that was about to end, whatever, thought Niall.

‘Get stuck in,’ said he, ‘and then we’ll have it out.’

At first uneasily, and then with a more than average hunger, they tucked in, as if willing to eat themselves into a coma that should prevent having to talk – or to listen.

And that, thought Niall, was not to be the way of it at all.

When they were groaning and satiate, he pinned them all at once with a blue electric glare. ‘I love y’ lads, all and each – and it’s tired I am of all t’is. Harry, darlin’, y’ t’ink y’ _See,_ and it’s blinder y’ are t’an Raftery. It’s not for not’ing myself was conceived in the _rath_ of Gibbonstown.... There’s none on y’ is _average,_ after all. And it’s time, it is, we all – came out.’

The sharp intake of breath was unplanned, universal, and in unison.

‘And what for waad I not go first? Daft as y’ are, and y’ calling me, thinking to jest, a “leprechaun” half t’e time. Which I am not being at all. It’s a gancanagh I am, an’ I’ll be t’anking y’ t’ remember it.’

Liam looked up, then, sharply, as did Zayn, whose mother’s people, after all, were Irish as well as English.

Niall shook his head with a kindly pity. ‘Did y’ t’ink it was _Simon_ of all waad not _See?_ And him what he is.’

‘What,’ asked Harry, ‘is that?’ His voice was even slower and huskier than commonly, and it was at the best of times treacle and whisky being dropped slowly into a tub of bran.

‘Wasn’t he Simon Magus of old, t’en, and t’e Wild Wistman o’ t’e woods as well? And if not – and it’s not myself as’d say he isn’t – one of those who come down to sport wit’ t’e daughters of men in t’e days of Jared, t’en as like t’ t’e Nephilim as himself? And was it t’inking you were he didn’t _See_ all t’is when toget’er he put us? Catch yourselves on! Or is it, darlin’ boy, t’at y’ don’t know what is a gancanagh, and yourself what y’ are to not know t’at? It’s not cobblers we are, nor after gold, and – for all t’at we’ll have a pipe wit’ any man, and eat and drink like our uncles and cousins t’e clurichauns – it’s not gluttony as moves us, but love o’ women and t’e joys o’ venery – in bot’ senses, and t’e chasin’ o’ women’s as fair fun as t’e catchin’ o’ t’em. Not t’at it’s all gancanagh I am, for amn’t I a selkie on me mam’s side? No, now: we’re none of us _average,_ are we, lads?’

If there was drama to be had, Louis Tomlinson was the last of all beings to be left out. He clapped his hands – with a deliberate nod to a school matinee of _Peter Pan._

‘Well! If there’s one thing I am _not_ average at, it’s coming out! I suppose we’re a Fairies Anonymous meeting?’ He ignored Niall’s frown and plunged forward before Niall could cut him off. ‘My name’s Louis, and I’m a lutin and a Reynardine, and a trickster through Wade and Loki – it’s from Baldur the Beautiful I get my looks, though!’ The Tommo’s performances, although always suffused with and informed by mockery as much of himself as of everything else, were always over the top; and he was camping it to a level that should have caused a raised eyebrow from Norton and Clary both. ‘What are _you,_ Liam, love? A werewolf?’

Niall did cut in, then, rather angrily – for once. ‘We’re none of us – what you said.’

‘Darling, _everyone_ calls me a fairy –’

‘ _Don’t_ joke. Don’t. Say. T’at. _Word._ ’ Niall was breathing hard, and his eyes glittered. ‘ _Our_ Sidhe – t’e Fair Folk t’at are to us – are a good people, but – t’ere are ot’ers. T’ey’re … well, it’s not sociopat’s y’ can call t’em, for it’s not souls t’ey have to be startin’ wit’, not as we have. Dangerous, t’ey are, mort-i-all dangerous. Stay away from t’em. Never trust one; and a _peri_ least of all.’

Liam muttered something under his breath, which may have been – Niall alone knew, and never was to say – ‘Knew there were a reason I didn’t trust her.’

‘Oh, really, Nialler, you do talk a lot of shit – and for once you’re the wettest of wet blankets.’

Niall stared Louis down. Then he turned to Harry. ‘Y’ may as well come out. An’ at least y’ can – and T’e Tommo also – leave aff t’inking t’e ot’er one’s Average, and be full honest wit’ your lover, now. Alt’ough wit’ T’e Tommo, _t’ere’s_ a hiding t’ not’ing: Loki an’ Wade _an’_ t’e Hedley Kow, and a puca wit’ it, t’at one.’

Harry blinked, slowly, as Louis, not bothering to deny the lineage Niall had now fully revealed in him, smirked.

* * *

Niall knew whereof he spoke, all the same. The Sidhe weren’t so bad, taking them all in all, and had souls after a fashion, and could be appealed to … but others of the Fair Folk were ‘fair’ – in either sense – only in the sense in which the Eryines, the Furies, the Diræ, were ‘the Kindly Ones’. It wasn’t malice, as such: there’s no malice, outside the pathetic fallacy with a touch of anthropomorphism, in, and no point in attributing malice to, a plague bacillus or a predator. If they charmed and enchanted, like any Pichal Peri or churel, it was for a purpose, that of feeding and parasitic reproduction.

This, of course, was wholly lost upon the very average (and avaricious) Average People at Modest, who could be charmed and enchanted, through greed quite as well and as readily as through more carnal lusts, by any Peri.

* * *

‘Mm. Er.’

‘Haz, darling....’ Louis was briskly affectionate.

‘I’m – mixed? I mean. There’s wizards – Alderley Edge, you know – and. Green Men. Fertility and all that. And dryads and meliai and hamadryads. And. Some incubus blood as well.’

Louis’ eyes became hooded and really quite frighteningly sultry at that. ‘ _I’ll_ say,’ murmured he, as Harry blushed. (Only Niall heard Liam’s unspoken, ‘Well, that explains a lot, Tommo and fangirls alike.’)

‘And a Siren or two, a good many generations back – even if I can’t hit the notes Payno and Zayner can.’

By now, Louis looked to be two beats away from ripping off his clothes, spreading his legs, and demanding that Harry take him then and there. Hastily, Niall gestured to Zayn.

‘My father’s family,’ said he, precisely and with no little dryness, as one who wishes to lower the temperature by waxing clinical, ‘are largely ifrits. We are also descended of a union between the Prince of the Lake and a – Fair One.’ He blushed, and hung his head, so that his hair hid his eyes. ‘Mum’s people are mostly English and Irish lake and water nymphs, and the Sidhe, and some succubi. Oh – and Epona.’

‘An’ all t’is ballocks about your bein’ feared o’ watter … it’s a _geis,_ is it not?’

Zayn nodded. He had a number of _geasa_ upon him.

* * *

At Modest, someone was having – so far as he knew, All On His Own – a Bright Idea.

* * *

‘So,’ said Niall. ‘It’s t’e ruler of t’e home and heart’-fire we have’ – he nodded towards Harry – ‘who keeps t’e gate as well – ah, now, what’s a stile but a gate, a por-tall, when it’s at home? – and t’e fighter for fame who’s t’e adopted son of t’e wee doubting man, but born of increase and t’e august.’ That was to Louis’ address. ‘And me t’e champion and t’e man of war, and Zayn here just what he is whatever, t’e beautiful prince, t’e king, t’e prince charmin’. And is it t’at a prince charming and beautiful’d take a barefooted slut from a cabin, wit’ cinders in her hair and all, t’ be his mate? It is not. So: Liam, t’e willin’ protexture....’

Liam shifted his shoulders, uneasily.

‘It’s all right, Leeyum,’ said Zayn, softly. ‘Even if you were … Average, yeah?’

‘But he isn’t, is he,’ said Louis, with a bright and bird-like eye and more interest, and of a more _focussed_ sort, than pleased either Harry or Zayn. ‘I still say he’s a werewolf from Wolvo.’

‘An’ it’s not far wrong y’ are, for oncet. Liam?’

‘I’m. Mostly English. But.’

‘Oh, sure,’ said Niall, with a grin, ‘an’ it’s “Liam’ y’ are an’ not “William” or “Bill” only t’at Karen an’ Geoff are huge fans o’ Oasis, and t’ey didn’t t’ink t’ name y’ “Noel”. Catch yourself on, is it up t’e Laggan in a bubble y’ t’ink I came?’

‘All right, all right. There’s a wulver or two – I’m hardly Scots, but – in the background; and conriochts.’

‘Is that a werewolf?’ Louis could be a man of one idea – as Harry especially knew, mostly of nights and in bed.

‘ _Irish_ werewolves,’ said Niall. ‘T’e kindly, friendly sort. Shapeshifters, not cursed, and protective o’ folk and flocks. Not,’ added he, with a cool look towards The Tommo. ‘t’at t’ey are all too fond o’ foxes, FitzReynard.’

Louis gulped, with a sudden quiet meekness.

‘And – well. Guy of Warwick was an ancestor, and. The Bear.’

‘Beowulf?’ Zayn was startled. And clearly intrigued; but, then, he had always been absurdly fascinated by Liam and everything to do with Liam, as had Liam in turn with Zayn, and the only two people on the planet who were oblivious to that were Zayn and Liam.

‘Um. Arthur.’

It rejoiced Niall’s soul to see Louis stunned into unwonted silence and with his mouth hanging open.

‘And,’ coaxed Niall, ‘you are also – _paisano_ –’ not for nothing had he done Spanish at school as his modern language – ‘something else as well?’

‘Payne. From _paganus._ From _pagan._ ’

‘You’re a –’

‘Nothing to do with religion, is it: ’s Latin for countryside.’

Niall, observing, had a very strong suspicion that Zayn was getting turned on by Liam’s unexpected display of learning.

‘So, it’s not only t’at you’re t’e wolf, and Art’ur t’e Bear, an’ a berserker as well wit’ it, you’re t’e Fisher King. You’re t’e land. It’s Britain itself y’ are.’

Liam was by now a bright, cherry red. ‘Dad is. I will be.’

Niall carefully catalogued for future recall and entertainment the reactions of his brethren. Harry, all fascination and empathy and love and worry over the burdens Liam bore (and quite loudly thinking, _This_ explains a lot, not least why our puppy of a mate can turn into top dog in a heartbeat). Zayn, quite simply suffused with lust – and relief, for he need now no longer hold back in throwing himself at Liam for fear of breaching the code governing relations with Average People – and thrumming with affection, realising that he had fallen in love with his native land incarnate … although it wasn’t _love,_ as such, that had caused his pupils to dilate so that his irises were the thinnest imaginable rings. And, best of all, Louis, suddenly realising that he had spent the last few years cheeking a shape-shifter capable of becoming wolf or bear as he chose and tearing him to gobbets … and who was Arthur’s heir and was the Three Kingdoms made flesh.

Niall – who loved Louis dearly, not least because Niall also enjoyed, as he was enjoying just now, causing mischief and mayhem, and who just as dearly liked to see Louis taken down a peg or two once in a way – was enjoying this hugely.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, bear hugs?


End file.
